About Walead Beshty

“Photographs operate something like ruins,” Walead Beshty says. “Despite their seeming stasis, they are available to a multitude of narratives, slipping effortlessly between them.” Beshty uses photography to explore how the medium functions or fails as a documentary form. He is best known for his large-scale photograms, as well as series featuring abandoned shopping malls in America. In 2001, Beshty made one of his best-known photographic series, “Travel Pictures,” shot in the then-recently defunct Iraqi Diplomatic Mission in Berlin, and damaged in the airport security’s X-ray scanners; the result was not only a relic of the site but of Beshty’s travel experience. Since 2005, Beshty has been working on his “FedEx Sculptures” in which shatterproof glass boxes are shipped to various destinations in standard FedEx containers—the works’ final appearance is determined by the damage accumulated during travel.